


Closed Circle

by GoggledMonkey



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Doppelganger, Haunted Houses, IDK spooky stuff, M/M, Ryan Bergara is scared of everything but also kicks ass, Shane Madej Is A Dick, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-23 20:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoggledMonkey/pseuds/GoggledMonkey
Summary: "Yeah sure Ryan, I'm a guh-guh-guh-ghost," Shane says in a sarcastic tone that would have more weight if Ryan hadn't just stuck his hand inside Shane's torso."I just put, like, my entire hand in your chest. You can't- You don't- How can you just- What is going on!?"In which Ryan can’t tie a cravat, Shane is an unhelpful dick (and also a ghost), and they’re both stuck in a house that's filled to the brim with spooky horror tropes.





	Closed Circle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [courante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/courante/gifts).



> Courante, I had so much fun working on this fic and your prompts allowed me try writing a story different from anything I’ve done before. It's not quite an AU but Ryan does spend the whole story wearing regency period clothing so hopefully it’s close enough.

+++

Ryan wakes up just as his plane takes off, the seat rocking him as the plane taxis. Except the seat is too comfortable, the plane is too quiet, the movement beneath him is more oddly rhythmic than the back in your seat push of a jet engine and he can't remember wrapping at the film location or driving to the airport or standing in the security line or boarding the plane or-

He opens his eyes.

He's not on a plane.

He must have fallen asleep in the rental car and they must be driving to the airport but, no, that's still wrong- he's alone, he can't see the driver's seat, and everything single thing about the car is off. The walls are dark polished wood, there's an empty seat across from him with red leather cushions and on either side of him are two big windows covered with actual curtains. He tugs a curtain aside to see grey unfamiliar landscape rolling by and with that wrongness, with all the wrong going on, a spike of adrenaline sets his heart racing.

The only time he's ever been in a horse-drawn anything was the Butterfield Stagecoach at Knott's Berry but it's still undeniable that this what this is, he can hear the Monty Python coconut clack-clack of horse hooves, the squeak of wood, the silent absence of an engine.

"What the fuck," he breathes.

Holy shit he's been kidnapped.

There's a moment when his brain just breaks and everything is white noise, the piercing static at the end of a VHS tape because, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what thefuck whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck

He pats his jeans for his phone to find that he not only does he not have his phone but he's not currently wearing his own clothes, he's wearing clothes he's never seen before, some kind of old-timey costume with a vest and jacket and weird front flap with buttons pants and he doesn't want to think how he ended up wearing these clothes but the implications are making a scream build up in the back of his throat like the physical manifestation of his terror ready to claw its way out of his body.  

He's got to get the fuck out of here right now.

He tries the door handle sure it'll be locked but it's not and he doesn't think just pushes the door open and jumps. The ground is surprisingly soft splattering him in mud and leaving his palms burning but nothing broken or sprained. Ryan's up and running before he really has time to catch his breath.

He gives one backward glance, just to see that yes it was a carriage and his kidnapper, a craggy old man in a long brown coat, is fighting with two definitely real rearing horses. Ryan locks eyes with the man, for just a moment, then just books it not even listen to whatever is yelled at his back.

Ryan runs until he can't hear the man or the horses then runs some more until he finds a stand of trees and leans there breathing hard. The word around him looks nothing like the landscape he remembers this…morning? They'd been filming in a small Tennessee town where the Smoky Mountains were a lush green backdrop, and this is not that. It's wet, the ground squishes under his feet but nothing is green and there are no mountains to be seen just an expanse of rolling flatness with intermittent clumps of trees. The trees are all dark trunks and leafless, the landscape dominated with dark mossy grounds and sections of long wild grass.   

He has no idea where he is.

Ryan closes his eyes and counts to two hundred. He looks back the way he came and nervously scuttles in the opposite direction.

Or, is that a dumb thing to do? He was on a road now he's stumbling through twisted shrubbery. Is it smarter to stay near the road? Is he currently enacting a dumb horror movie cliché? Is he the group splitting up when there's a monster, the mayor keeping the beach open when bodies start piling, the white dad buying a rundown farmhouse promising it will all be better from here on out?

Worse of all, is Ryan the cute co-ed fumbling with her car keys when the ax murder is right behind her?

The indecision of it all freezes him in his tracks. All the practical info his brain contains about kidnappings comes from the shitty educational movies he watched as a kid -all stranger danger stuff with cute catchy songs about listening to his heart- but his brain also contains scene after scene of the terrible aftermath of kidnappings, a large collection of grisly crime scenes photos from the research he's done over the years.

In the end, it's the simple desire to not be brutally murdered that has him walking away from the road. At first, it's fine, he's able to find what seems like maybe a path heading away from the road and sure, the landscape continues to be colourless and unfamiliar, but he can also see a long distance so no one can sneak up on him. All he needs to do is keep his head, keep walking and he'll find a town, call the cops, see his coworkers alive and well and get straight to work on a video titled ‘how I escaped my kidnappers'.

But the landscape continues with no town, it starts to get cold and then, the worst of it, fog starts rolling in, as dramatic and thick as anything San Francisco can cook up. The sunlight that was weak already mutes down to nothing as the landscape blurs and dims until everything is shrouded.

Pressing on is hell when everything seems to get darker each step he takes and trees keep surprising him by scratching at his face and catching on his clothes. There are strange shapes in the mist, and sounds at first just skittering and weird then, Ryan can swear, that he's hearing his name whispered in an almost familiar voice. He turns away from the noises each time but each time he hears it his heart rate ratchets up a notch and he's not sure how much longer he can last before it literally explodes.

At the worst point, almost entirely blind, fingers numb and clothes damp and freezing footsteps starting to splash instead of just squish he sees it, more than vague a shape he sees a thing out in the fog, a flickering light paired with an ominous tapping, coming right towards him. It feels like everything coming to a head, like the world is saying ‘This is it Bergara, the true test of your character' and he just freezes like a stupid animal in headlights failing at both fight and flight.

"Who's there? What do you want?" he calls out voice not at all steady.

The shape finally resolves itself into a man, impossibly tall, on the back of a horse holding a lantern. Being human and not a monster or a demon isn't reassuring enough here in the terror fog so Ryan takes a big step back.

"Another step Mr. Smith could be quite deadly for you."

Ryan stops backing away entirely because he knows that voice, he's spent hours and hours of his life with that voice, he can, in fact, recognize that voice even when it's owner's face is shrouded by shadows.

"Shane?"

The figure leans forward into the light of the lantern and it is Shane and the relief Ryan feels is like pain disappearing with morphine, immediate and dizzying.

"What the hell man, where are we?"

"You, my good man, are on the cusp of a fatal misstep." Shane is doing some kind of weird snooty British voice but that's not as important as what happens when he thrusts the lantern closer and looks pointedly behind Ryan.

Ryan glances behind him and recoils jumping closer to Shane and the horse. There's water behind him, he can see it now in the light just a half step away from where he was standing. It's not a river, it's not even moving, it's black and ominously still, but the idea of falling into it is unthinkably terrible. There's something wrong with the water, something scary and unknown.

"Oh man, I-" Ryan cuts himself off because he looks up at Shane, eyes glittering in the lantern light, wearing clothes as equally ridiculous as what Ryan's wearing, sitting there on a goddamn horse and he waits for a twitch or something to indicate that Shane's just fucking with him, but it never happens. This isn't a weird goofy bit.

"You're not Shane, are you?" Ryan asks already knowing the answer because he knows Shane and this person with Shane's face (and Ryan is hoping that he's a person and not something else) isn't Shane. It's so glaringly obvious now that Ryan can see his eyes.

"Lord Augustus Walsham and your employer, if you are, indeed, Ruben Smith, my recently hired tutor, who some hours ago took a fit in my carriage and ran off into the fen. My man, Gibbs, was unable to unable to locate you and unwilling to stay out past nightfall, but my soft heart implored me to look for this wayward dove. If you are that soul I would have you come with me but if you are just a specter in the dark, I will leave you here."

It's a thing a huge thing that Ryan realized as soon as he was swallowed by the unnatural fog. This was it. This is it a verified supernatural thing that is happening to Ryan and it is his job, his duty, to investigate it. So yeah, of course, he's going with this man. Ryan can only hope that it's not a demon and he's not putting his soul in mortal peril.

"That's me, I'm Ruben Smith," he says and he takes Not!Shane's hand and is pulled onto the horse in front of the other man. Not!Shane, or Lord Augustus as he introduced himself, doesn't devour Ryan's soul just hands Ryan the lantern then makes a noise Ryan realizes after a second is chuckling in a dickish kind of way.

"Now, you will hold the lantern and I shall attempt to ferry our souls out Tartarus. And, if you would, do try to stop shaking like a rabbit. It makes the light bounce."

Ryan's not a stranger to people implying he's a scaredy cat (especially from a Shane sounding voice) so he brushes off the tone and tries not to shake so much.

"I've never seen fog like this. Or water like that." Ryan's glad they're on the move and leaving this horrible place behind them.

"Yes, the land here is quite perilous, especially at night. When the fog rolls in, the water rises in a curious tide and these mires are hidden in the gloom. This fen hides more than a few bones of the lost wanderers. It was quite dangerous to leap into the wilderness as you did."

"Yeah, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"But what was it? What drove you from the carriage? Did you see something? A portent of some kind?"

"A portent?" Ryan repeats dumbly.

"An omen. A sign. A message from beyond."

"I know what a portent is. It's just weird to hear…to hear that word it is all."

Weird to hear Shane say it that is, with a matter of fact way of talking about mysticism that even Ryan (who believes in about 85% of the theories he presents on Supernatural) doesn't pull off well.

"Are you not a believer in the spirit world than Mr. Smith?"

Being a believer of the supernatural himself Ryan knows that the worst response to being asked if you believe in ghosts is hysterical unrelenting laughter.

"It is a dangerous thing, to treat the spirits with such contempt," Lord Augustus says in a cold tone that's both sulky and enraged and then he seems resigned to not talk to Ryan anymore. The thought crosses his mind to apologize for the laughter, but he actually can deal with the weirdness of a Shane look-a-like a lot better when he can't see or hear him.

The fog keeps twisting around them as they trot along but the whispers, the ones that seem to be calling his name have faded behind them. The fog even seems to relax its shroud a bit and Ryan can see trees again and the dirt road they're following. It seems like excruciating hours of the horse clip-clopping along and Ryan's butt starting to go numb when they step out of the fog and there's a house in front of them.  The house, which looks Adam's Family awful, looms three stories high (or fours stories since an extra tower part juts up in the middle) and is made of dark grey stone. It looks both old fashioned and like the picture you'd find beside the dictionary definition of a haunted house.

"We have arrived, The Manor on the Fen, my family home. I will leave you here Mr. Smith; Mrs. Gibbs can be found on the other side of the kitchen door to help you to your room."

Ryan reluctantly gets off the horse and it rears up in dramatic cowboy fashion and they gallop off leaving Ryan alone in the dark. There's hardly any light coming from the house at all. Maybe that nightmare fog was better. But then he hears it again, the whispers of his name and readily knocks on the door.

A grim-faced woman in a dark dress opens the door and whisks him inside.

"Uh, hi I'm…" Ryan stumbles for a second because he's forgotten his fake first name. "I'm Mr. Smith."

"We know your name," a man leaning in the corner grumbles, "Yer that damn fool who nearly killed himself running off like that."

The man, Ryan realizes, is the person driving the carriage earlier that he thought had kidnapped him. Gibbs Lord Augustus had called him.

"Sorry about that. It was…I saw a portent."

Gibbs nods like that makes perfect sense. "Grim things out in the fog."

"What kind of things?"

"Couldn't rightly say. It's not wise to be out there alone at night."

He doesn't get anything else out of him, Mrs. Gibbs having enough of their talk quickly railroads him through the kitchen up a narrow set of stairs down a darkened hall and pushes him into a bedroom.

"You'll meet the young master in the morning." She says before closing the heavy door behind her.

Alone in the bedroom, he can feel a nervous energy filling him, a mixture of panic, hysteria, and excitement. He's let himself get swept up into this house and weird fiction of Mr. Smith the tutor but it's fine because he is going to figure out what is happening to him.

Opening the heavy door to the bedroom Ryan peeks out at a hall stretching endless and black in either direction. He imagines for a moment being in that hall, in that dark, with only a candle and no camera crew or co-host following him and closes the door again.

That leaves him with only the bedroom itself to investigate. The light from the fire doesn't fill the corners of the room and this is definitely a situation in which Ryan would like to flood the room with light if he could but he makes the best of things and lights a candle from the fire and pokes around.

The bed is a standard four poster bed and he ducks down to look under it. He hates beds that have underneaths (under the bed drawers is the way to go baby) because his brain always supplies an image of a hand reaching out to grab his ankles but there is currently nothing under the bed but dust.

He's making his way to look at the other furniture, the creepy painting above the fireplace first then the bookcase against the wall, when the room is filled with reverberating percussion sound, like a giant going ‘bah!' that makes him yip and jump.

This sound, he realizes when the second one comes, is a clock somewhere out in the darkened house ringing both loud and distantly. He counts the bongs, and they stop after twelve, midnight,

The witching hour his brain helpfully supplies.

Then Ryan hears a new sound, worse than the clock because he can't decipher it right away. It seems to be coming from the wall and when he moves closer, he thinks it sounds like a distant yell.  A distant yell that sounds an awful lot like his name.

He walks to the wall and cocks his head straining to hear the faint sounds.

And it definitely sounds like his name echoing from beyond the wall. And Shane, if he were here, would say ‘you're crazy Ryan, that's just random vowels and Chewbacca noises. It sounds nothing like your name' but Shane wasn't here and that very much fucking sounded like a ghostly voice calling out Ryaaaaaaaaan, Ryaaaaaaaaan.

The candle sputters in his hand as a cool wind makes his jacket flap.

"Nope," he says backing up from the wall. He gasps when the back of his legs hit the bed but keeps backing up onto the bed until he's fully on the mattress then, shoving the candle haphazardly onto the headboard, he dives underneath the covers.

It's dark under the covers, which sucks, but it comes with the added bonus that he can't see the awful all around him and the only sound he can hear is his own raspy breathing.

He spent a fair amount of his childhood in a similar position, trembling in fear under his blankets, guts twisting, absolutely sure that if he threw the blankets aside there would be a shape in the gloom, a Thing waiting in the dark. That Thing had usually been Slappy the Dummy for little Ryan but as an adult, The Thing tends to be some type of demonic force, no distinct shape, no clear features but a menacing and looming presence coming for Ryan's very soul.

He can't stop thinking about a nameless thing it in the room with him and he can feel the prickle of eyes staring down at him beneath the blankets, knows there's a presence there like he's manifested a demon just by thinking of it and that if he pulls aside the blanket, there it will be at the end of the bed, eyes and teeth the only thing visible in the gloom. Or he'll flip aside the blanket and a white eyeless face will be hovering inches from his own.

When he finally pulls his head out and looks there isn't anything; he's still alone in the room. He's not crazy, though, no matter how easy it is for his brain to terrify him into submission. He knows what he heard. He's also a professional ghoul hunter so he takes a deep yet unsteady breath (which does little to slow his heartbeat) and says to the empty room, "Hello. Does someone want to talk to me?"

Nothing answers.

It's a slow process getting out of the bed and forcing himself back to the far wall.

"My name's Ryan," he tries again. "Is there someone here?"

There's no sound but the candle wavers when he gets close to the back wall. On a whim, he does the thing where you lick your finger and holds it up for the wind but that mostly just leaves him with a wet finger. Still, …maybe not wind as much as its draft? He eyeballs the bookcase then puts his shoulder to it and gives it a shove.

"Oh no," his voice is a crazed but resigned whisper as he reveals that in the space behind the bookshelf there is no wall but a narrow tunnel. He knows as soon as he sees it that he's going into that tunnel and the whole thing makes him want to throw up.

"I hate this," Ryan says for his own benefit before holding out the candle and eases his way in.

"I hate this, I hate this, I hate this," he repeats continuing down the tunnel. The candlelight jumps chaotically on the stone walls because his hand is shaking so hard. Everything about the tunnel is terrible from the gritty dust puffing up from the floor to the long nasty cobwebs dripping down, to the way pitch black end never seems to come.

But that was a little bit hyperbole because he does come to an end when suddenly and fairly anticlimactically he nearly smacks nose first into a wooden wall. Ryan presses a tentative hand against the wall and with a creak, it swings out like a door (because, of course, it does).

He peeks out of the tunnel expecting anything from a torture chamber ala a Vincent Price film to a more different torture chamber ala a more different Vincent Price film.

It's not a torture chamber; it's a mostly empty room.

Ryan's heart leaps and aches in his chest because at the center of the room is Shane.

The anxiety rats that had been chewing up Ryan's insides for the last few hours finally take a break, at the sight of Shane, real Shane, not lord whatever because this Shane is the real Shane from the messy brown hair and goofy face to the ghoul kicking boots.

Shane doesn't see him, because he's sitting in the middle of the room crisscross applesauce staring off into the distance likes he's pondering a difficult math problem.

"Shane," Ryan says stepping into the room. He's never been happier to see that stupid face.

Shane starts and looks over eyes wide a nervous look like he rarely wears melting into a pleased grin as soon as he locks eyes with Ryan.

"Ryan! Good, I have been having a time." He stops and eyes Ryan up and down frowning, "And…what's the story behind the costume change?"

Ryan makes an aborted move, he needs very uncharacteristically to hug Shane, prove this is real when he gets a good look at the way the moonlight is making Shane look…blurry.

More like a projection on smoke then something concrete.

"No, no."

"What? Man, you looked startled. What happened did you see a-"

Ryan steps forward and touches Shane's chest or he would have except his hand passes through like it's a beam of sunlight. Like Shane is massless.

Like he's a ghost.

The candle drops from Ryan's hands and his back up against the far wall before he even registers. Shane looks…bemused. He looks at Ryan, then down at the candle.

"Huh," he says as his hand passes through the candlestick for the third time.

"Are you-" Ryan cuts himself off unable to finish asking ‘are you dead?'

"Yeah sure Ryan, I'm a guh-guh-guh-ghost," Shane says in a sarcastic tone that would have more weight if Ryan hadn't just stuck his hand inside Shane’s torso.

"I just put, like, my entire hand in your chest. You can't- You don't- How can you just- What is going on!?"

Shane shrugs infuriatingly nonchalant, "I couldn't say, Ryan. Peculiar stuff."

"Peculiar? You're a fucking ghost!"

"Uh uh. I refuse to believe I died during a filming and have to haunt a tacky tourist trap in Tennessee."

"We're not…this isn't the Anderson Farm." 

"Oh, ho, you're saying we're not in Kansas anymore? Where are we then?"

"I have no idea. A house in the middle of some hell fog." Ryan goes to the window and rubs at the yellow pane until he can see the mass of fog that he'd been trapped in earlier and asks, "does this look like anyplace you recognize?"

When Ryan looks over his shoulder Shane is still just standing in the middle of the room looking ruffled and embarrassed.

"What?"

"Ah, well, there's an issue here, that I should have mentioned earlier, but then I was distracted by my weird, but not ghostly, body problem and…"

"There's an issue besides the fact that you're a ghost?"

"Don't be ridiculous, ghosts aren't real."

That was really rich coming from the guy Ryan can see through if he squints.

Shane sighs. "I'm stuck here. That's the stupid thing I didn't mention."

"You're stuck in this room?"

"No, I'm stuck right here," and Shane holds his hands up like he's pressing up against the side of a glass beaker.

Ryan stares for a moment before saying, "You look like a mime."

"Yeah, that was the dream if this internet video thing didn't pan out." Shane crosses his arms and looks put out, "This is so stupid. I don't like the idea that I'm dreaming something so incredibly dumb, so this had better be your dumb dream Bergara, I swear to god."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it's simple, really-" Shane starts but Ryan never gets to find out what's so simple because Shane is cut off by a loud noise reverberating through the room. Ryan yelps whirling around before realizing it was just that loud ass clock again. He turns back to Shane, "I hate that clock so god-"

His voice cuts off, leaving just him and the quiet.

Shane was gone.

+++

Ryan waits in the creepy room for more than an hour hoping Shane would somehow reappear as quickly as he'd disappeared, but he never does.

Ryan goes back to the bedroom because it's slightly more palatable. He doesn't sleep because of course, he doesn't sleep the house is a literal nightmare. He drifts watching his candle burn lower and lower when a knock on his door makes him jump.

He opens it cautiously to find Mrs. Gibbs in the hallway glowering at him.

"Um, yes?"

"You are late for lessons,"

"Lessons?"

"You are Master Timothy's new tutor are you not? Come along. I will escort you to him."

"Oh, sure," he answers feeling out of sorts. Somehow, the entire night had gone by while he stared at his candle. Outside his bedroom the hallway which had looked black and imposing was now dimly lit and much less terrifying. He follows her down the hall.

Investigate. He's supposed to investigate.

"So, how many other people live here?"

"It was just the four of us before you arrived, the Lord doesn't want too many folks around on account of the little master's poor health."

That's not a lot of people in this big echoey house which paints a very creepy isolated picture.

"Do you guys have…a phone?"

"A what?"

"I mean…a way to get a message out if you need to."

"There's a telegraph in the village if that's what you mean, but you would never make it there before dark."

"Right." He's not surprised that he's trapped in a house that's like a sandbar in the middle of the inescapable sea with sharks hidden in the water. This is where he is supposed to be. He was led here for some reason.

They pause at the top of the staircase leading from the second floor to the entrance hall, and Mrs. Gibbs says, "I usually take the kitchen stairs but this one will be faster for you. I don't much like it, being that it's where Lady Adelia died."

"That's horrible."

"Mr. Gibbs and I didn't work here then mind, the Lord released the household before the Lady took ill but I've talked to the nurse who cared for her. She'd been ill for weeks they say, raging at the shadows, calling for her husband but not recognizing the Lord when he came to her. In a fit one night, she ran from him, fell down the stairs and broke her neck. They found her body at the bottom like a beautiful broken bird."

Her voice is suitably campfire story spooky and it gives him the heebie jeebies. He holds the railing tightly as they descend he eyes the floor at the bottom of the stairs wearily. Stories of violent death may be his bread and butter but he's never liked walking over a spot someone died.

"Here is the study we are using for Master Timothy's lessons." And Mrs. Gibbs opened the heavy wooden door. "Dear sweet Timmy, meet your new teacher, Mr. Smith."

The room is lined with bookcases with a great big desk up against one wall, a fat stuffed chair in the corner. The room was old fashioned but normal looking. The little boy sitting at a desk on the other hand, well, that kid is creepy as fuck. Is this a mean thought? Yes, but that doesn't stop the hairs from rising on the back of Ryan's neck when a pale face slowly swings over so large unblinking owl eyes can stare at him.

She leaves him alone with the child and no clue what to do.

"Uh, hi Timmy. My names Ry-Ruben. Or…Mr. Smith. You can call me whatever."

But Timmy doesn't call Ryan anything just stares at him. He looks…he doesn't look right, like a claymation model veering into the uncanny valley. He's pale, real pale but maybe that's exacerbated by the dark grey clothes he wearing, a miniature of the goofy stuff Ryan's got on, a little jacket, a little waistcoat and the hint of a ruffled collar under his chin. His eyes are the most striking thing, dark and glinting underlined with bruise purple bags.

The eyes are scary; maybe it's because the kid's quiet doll-like quality but more likely it's because kids in haunted places so often mean demon.

The kid doesn't do anything so Ryan, getting more bored then creeped out investigates the room. There's a window in the back of the room and he looks out. It doesn't look so bad, a slight morning haze but he can see the landscape, tree-dotted grey field stretching off into the distance. Maybe he's not so trapped.

He wants to do research, he's itching to google the symptoms of this experience. He wants his cell phone so badly it's like a phantom limb.

How'd he even get here? He woke up in that carriage but he doesn't remember falling asleep. He doesn't remember wrapping up filming because they didn't wrap filming. His memories are like badly edited footage that cuts from location to another with no establishing shots. It's him, on location at a haunted farm in Tennessee, him stepping through a doorway in the abandoned barn, Shane on his heels and then he's waking up in the carriage. There's no how, or what or-

"Why are you here?"

Ryan, lost in his thoughts, forgetting he's not alone, jerks like electrocution when the boy speaks and smashes his knee on the desk.

"Shit! I mean, sugar. I mean, what?"

Timmy doesn't repeat himself but stares at Ryan. He still never seems to blink and Ryan's eyes hurt sympathetically. It's as if the voice hadn't even come from him. Well maybe not, Ryan hadn't seen his mouth move.

"I'm here because…Um…I guess I'm teaching you." Which isn't true, because the two of them had been sitting in silence for the last however long but… Ryan remains at a standoff with the quiet non-blinking child.

"I guess your father hired me," Ryan starts to be cut off when the kid says, matter-of-fact (Ryan sees his mouth move and everything):

"My father is dead."

"What?" it comes out a strangled squeak, he coughs and tries again a little less terrified, "what do you mean by that?"

"It isn't safe here."

Ryan's spine has been replaced by ice, goosebumps rippling up his arms so fast it hurts his skin. The fear that had been resting in his stomach reaches up and grabs his heart in a painful fist.

"What? Why? What does that mean?"

But the kid isn't looking into Ryan's eyes anymore, his gaze has drifted away, unfocused eyes on the wall.

"Hey what do you-" Ryan reaches to touch him, nudge his shoulder, but the boy grabs him first. The hand too small to even encircle Ryan's wrist too cold, too freezing, gripping tightly too tightly to be a child and he screams.

The kid that is, not Ryan though there's a scream bubbling inside him ready to surface any second.

The scream is piercing, like a fire alarm in a dead sleep. Like a warning.

A reminder to be afraid.

The screaming brings Mrs. Gibbs who seems completely nonplussed by the whole thing.

"Poor dear, having a fit," she tuts leading the still screaming boy away for a nap. The sounds had echoed down the hall leaving Ryan alone heart pounding. 

What the heck was that? Was _that_ a portent? Was it a sick kid or something much sinister? Once he can't hear the screams he leaves the room too. The whole episode had been extremely disturbing.

"Mr. Smith."

"AAH!" Ryan screams as Lord Augustus steps into his path.

"Relax little rabbit," the man pats his shoulder kindly, "You are indeed a nervous fellow."

"Sorry…there was. Your son was…um…upset."

Lord Augustus doesn't seem bothered by this, "yes, yes the boy has his fits of confusion. It can be quite upsetting I know. You seem disturbed. Come up to my salon and have a drink."

"Oh, no no. I'm fine." Ryan takes in the other man getting a better look now then last night. He is wearing a black jacket a stiff white collar hardly visible at his neck behind the red scarf knotted there and he holds a silver tipped cane. Ryan can almost imagine seeing Shane dressed like that on a normal day, for a video or something. The whole thing looks weirdly elegant and off-putting and Ryan's not sure he wants to spend much time with him.

"I insist," the man says in a voice you can't really say no too.

The salon turns out to be a cozy cluttered room with tapestries lining the wall and a small table with deep winged back chairs one of which Ryan's pushed into. Augustus goes to a shelf by the fireplace and begins making tea.

"Are you familiar with the art of divination?" he asks over his shoulder "Reading the future?"

"Uh, yeah I've heard of it."

"Good, good," Lord Augustus places one of the cups in front of Ryan and sits across from him with his own cup. "Drink that and I shall see what future the leaves foresee for you, Mr. Smith."

Ryan looks at the cup, a delicate blue china thing steaming with tea. He really doesn't want to drink from that cup. His brain is screaming _don't eat anything, don't drink anything, don't let them know your real name_. Maybe because a creepy screaming kid had said he was unsafe or maybe because of the strange look in what could be Shane's eyes but weren't.

"Is there a special way to drink it?" he asks holding it out, knowing it's a stupid question but wanting to stall.

Lord Augustus gives him a fond placating look that does seem achingly like Shane's face when Ryan says something dumb.

"It's just tea, Mr. Smith," the man takes the cup and sips with an exaggerated slurp.

"Got it," Ryan smiles and takes the other teacup the one that hadn't been placed in front of him. Steels himself, hopes there's no iocane powder in the cup and takes a drink. It tastes like tea, distantly floral and slightly bland. It doesn't taste like poison so that's something.

The tea leaves left in the cup just looks like wet clumps to him but Augustus takes the cup with an eager energy. He's done various mystic things with Shane and he could always see the ironic glimmer in Shane's eye because the big guy thinks it's all bullshit. This version of Shane looks intently into the cup as if he truly believes there's some truth written there.

"What do you see?" Ryan asks, interested despite his earlier wariness.

"Hmm." Augustus shakes his head, "I recognized in you, upon our meeting, that we have similar auras. You have a sensitive nature to you, sir, and as such you are primed to see through the veil.  What a shame, then, that you dismiss the spirits."

"I do believe. I'm sorry about laughing before. I was just…having a bad day. But I do, I do believe."

Augustus puts down the cup and stares intently into Ryan's eyes, "You would tell me if you saw something? If there were a shade creeping in from the dark into this place of light? I must do what I can to protect myself, to protect my family that is."

"Like the fog?"

He waves a dismissive hand, "The fog cannot hurt you. It's just fog. It stays outside the house. I keep this house cleansed but there are times when doors force their way open, times of day when the veil is thin."

"Right."

"What did you see?" Augustus is staring at him now, not the cup but Ryan's eyes, intense and heated. Like Ryan had seen something, had seen this portent. And the thing is, Ryan has seen a ghost but he's not super excited to share that with this guy.

"There wasn't anything in the carriage. I was just hot, thought I'd walk the rest of the way."

"As you say. I believe you," Augustus says these words but his tone says ‘liar'. A brief look flashes over his face, annoyance or anger before it's smoothed over back to the pleasant but eccentric thing he's been doing all evening. Augustus looks back into the cup and Ryan is finally free from that look.

"Your cup Mr. Smith, unfortunate signs, the middle shows the rack- terrible anxiety and fear beset by the crossbones- danger surrounds you. In the bottom positions the scepter- loss of power, failure," those eyes are on him again and he shivers, "and how do you overcome this terror?"

Augustus pauses and smiles but it's a shark smile the friendliness not reaching his eyes. "The rook in the top position, a new friend reaching to help you, a hand you would be foolish to brush aside." Augustus places the cup down with a clink that sounds earth-shatteringly loud in the tiny room. "But it's getting late and I shall not keep you any longer. Sleep well, my new friend."

+++

Ryan has a theory.

He doesn't even let the clock finish chiming midnight; he's already stepping into the secret tunnel in his room making his way back to the empty dusty room.

Or not so empty anymore, because the exact moment the last sound tolls, he can hear the faint sounds of his name being called.

"Hey," Ryan greets Shane who is indeed back in the secret room and throws up his hands exasperated when he sees Ryan.

"You just disappeared! Rude."

"No, you disappeared on me. Last night. It's a new day now. I think…I think you're only here between midnight and one." The witching hour, his brain once again happily tells him. Times when the veil is thin like Augustus worried about.

"How very Christmas Carol of me."

"Am I right though? You appeared at midnight last night too? That's what I heard? That was you calling my name? Like, a bunch of times?"

"I…I called your name the appropriate amount of times." Shane looks shifty and maybe a bit embarrassed which is enough to satisfy Ryan. Shane can act put together but trap him in a dark room and he's not so composed, is he?

Ryan rubs his hands together, "Well, let's get into it."

"Into what?"

"I spent most of the last hour you were here being too scared to function. I need to, like, brainstorm with you so we can figure out what's going on and how we can get back."

"Get back?"

"Well, we're not where we were. We're not in Tennessee. I'm not sure this is even America or our time. I mean look how I'm dressed."

"You do look like a goof. Also, are you claiming time travel?"

"Not time travel. Look, I have a theory about this. Do you remember the last thing we were doing? Before you woke up here?"

"Sure. We were…shooting an episode, at that farm. The Anderson Farm with that dumb well. We were in the barn and…" Shane trails off and Ryan wonders if he's experiencing the same time vertigo the absolute confusion of stepping through a door and being -somewhere- else.

"Do you remember the stuff that I said had happened at the farm?

"Sure, sure, spooky witch stuff."

"Right witches and the well but there were also those psychics, the ones that did the séance in the '80s. Remember that part? One of the spirits they felt, they called it a portal. You made a Narnia joke. I don't think we left the house, at least not the traditional way." He pauses for dramatic effect then says, "I think we might have gone into that portal."

"I knew it! So this place is Narnia isn't it?"

Ryan gives Shane and his flippant tone a glare, "Look, I just spent the day tutoring your creepy ghost child and dealing with jump scares. The least you could do is take me seriously."

"What are you talking about? I don't have a kid and according to your insane brain I'm a ghost so unless you think ghosts can make babies, and I guess I can't really put it past you to believe that-"

"Whatever man, the guy that looks like you, Lord Augustus, it's his creepy kid who looked at me with his creepy eyes and whispered creepy shit to me. In a creepy voice"

"You're quite the wordsmith there Ryan, really painting a picture for me. I'm getting the sense that this kid was creepy."

"Shut up! Creepy is the word for everything here! This room is at the end of a secret passage in my bedroom, I can't leave this house or I'll get lost in the fog and down in a lake and Lord Augustus keeps asking about portents and reading my tea leaves." 

"Sounds spooky. I bet if you check the attic the guy has, like, his crazy wife stashed up there."

"What?" Ryan's body involuntary shivers.

"Come on man, that's from Jane Eyre. You know a rollicking tale of a governess getting negged by her boss and finding out he's still married to the wife he keeps in the attic after he seduces her with his brooding mysterious manliness. Like how I assume, Lord what's his face is seducing you, the male version of a governess, by reading your palm."

"He's not seducing me. Also, his wife's dead. And it was tea leaves."

"Yeah, the no homo, that was the important part to focus on. And fine he's got something else stashed in his attic. You gotta admit it fits. I mean, the details are off but it's clearly the same genre. You know, gothic horror with all that murder, incest, mistaken identities and yadda yadda yadda."

"Ok, ok." Ryan nods eagerly. It seems like they're getting somewhere now. "So maybe to get back we need to figure out why everything's weird and creepy?"

"Oh yeah, that sounds great Ryan, solve a mystery. That's a thing you're totally qualified to do. That's why we called our show Buzzfeed Solved."

"If we did call it that our new network would be called BS."

"Which makes sense since that's what this all is."

"Whatever, we've clearly proven it's not BS. Forget the jokes. You think Augustus is hiding something?" Ryan rolls his eyes at his own question, "Of course, he is. He's super weird."

"Yeah, there's gotta be some kind of closet skeletons in a story like this." Shane pops him a double thumbs up with an exaggerated grin, "Go get your Scooby Doo on Ryan, unmask that villain."

"How are you taking this so well? Are you actually a robot or what?"

Shane has the audacity to raise an eyebrow incredulously, "All what exactly am I taking well?"

"This! Everything! That awful fog, this spooky house, the creepy kid, your weird doppelganger, this!" and with that Ryan swipes a hand at Shane bisecting him neatly, no harm no foul.

"You know, the fans all say I'm rude to ghosts but you just stuck your hand right inside me, without asking first I might add."

"I'm freaking out here man! I need you to join me."

"Ryan," Shane has an infuriating soft look on his face, a pitying smile like Ryan said something incredibly naive, "I'm not freaking out because this is nothing."

"What do you mean nothing? This is literally everything!"

Shane just laughs. Tips his head back and everything then gives Ryan that same infuriating smile. "This is a dream. It's not real. And not only is it a dream, but my mind has forced me into a very boring tell don't show dream scenario where you come in from off stage to tell me all the interesting parts are happening just over there where I can't see. What spooky fog, house, kid, me? I'm in a dusty room and you're cosplaying as Mr. Darcy. That's it."

"I'm sorry are you…are you calling me a liar?" He and Shane have never agreed on matters supernatural, that's the premise of their show, they even categorize their fans by it, but Ryan's always at least had the knowledge that Shane would go to bat for Ryan's integrity, that he would never call Ryan a liar and now Shane is flat out saying Ryan is crazy.

"I'm not calling Ryan a liar but you, a figment of my deranged brain, sure I'll call that a liar. That's what brains are anyway, huge liars."

"I'm not a figment of your imagination, asshole! And if anyone in this room isn't real it's you!"

Ryan may have played the poking his hand through Shane's chest too much because Shane hardly bats an eye at the intrusion.

"I guess we're at an impasse then."

"What if I…" Ryan tries, "what if I tell you something about me you don't know?"

"Are we trading secrets now Ryan? Dishing the hot goss? Sure, hit me with something I don't know."

Ryan opens his mouth to-and stops because what doesn't Shane know about him? Or what doesn't Shane know that he also wouldn't think he himself had just made up? Shane knows most of Ryan's secrets and the ones too boring or shameful to tell they aren't really out of left field.

Except for that one thing.

He's taking too long and Shane laughs, "I'm not even creative enough to-"

"Sometimes I think we're on the cusp of being more than just friends," Ryan says before he can stop himself. That's a secret, maybe not a secret that Shane doesn't know maybe it just a truth universally unacknowledged, "like we share so much that it doesn't seem weird to think we could...you know."

Shane stares at him, speechless and Ryan, he's satisfied, so satisfied, that he gets a reaction that's not blandly amused. "Yeah bet you weren't thinking that."

The satisfaction doesn't last long. "That doesn't prove anything."

"Was that something you were thinking about?" Ryan snaps back.

"No idea. Who can understand the mystery of a man's mind? Maybe I did want you to say you loved me. Who's to say?"

"I didn't say I loved you! I just…That's such a shitty attitude."

Shane shrugs blasé.

"Whatever man. You can be in denial all you want. And I mean denial for both the ghost stuff and the other thing. Have fun with that. I'm gonna solve this haunted mansion and I'll leave with proof that the supernatural is real and you can go cry in your cereal about that."

Shane laughs again. It's not even a mean laugh, just the same snicker he'd do during filming but Ryan's furious at the sound, "It's a great story concept. The Ghoul Boys and the Secrets of the Spoooooky Mansion."

"Doesn't sound like it's gonna be the Ghoul Boys. It sounds like it just me."

Shane's face falls, "Aw, don't be like that."

But Ryan will be like that thank you very much and he stomps out. The clock rings one halfway down the tunnel and the sound of Shane's calling him back stops with silence.

Well, screw that guy anyway. Ryan didn't need Shane to solve a mystery, he can do it on his own.

+++

The next day his plan to explore the house and find its secrets gets capsized almost immediately when Lord Augustus Walsham stops Ryan in the hallway outside his room.

"Shocking to catch you in undress, Mr. Smith,"

"What? I'm dressed!" Ryan looks down in a panic in case, maybe this place -is- following dream rules and he's gone to work without pants. But no, he is cool on the pants front stupid button panel having things that they are.

"No jacket or cravat on, just walking about in only your weskit and shirt, it is quite improper." Lord Augustus' smiles but it's one that sets Ryan's teeth on edge. "If you were trying to catch my eye, you have succeeded."

For all Ryan's calls out Shane's unnecessary height (and all that 20 miles of leg -is- pretty unnecessary) Shane's never used it as an intimidation tactic. He's got a very gentle giant thing going which Ryan is only now fully realizing because this man, Lord Augustus, looms over Ryan and crowds into his space in a way that makes Ryan feel small and vulnerable. Ryan doesn't like feeling vulnerable (hot take on the human conditions) but also he's also been called a stubborn asshole so when Augustus leans forward Ryan holds his footing and lets him.

Augustus is very close to Ryan as he says, "Ever since I lost my darling Adelia life has been so dreary. There has been no good humour in this house, but you are like a new toy on Christmas Day, a bright object to attract the eye and entertain the mind."

"That's…that's a compliment I guess."

"It is." The man's hand is now lightly touching Ryan's shirt sleeve There's something about that man that unnerves him and it's not just Shane's face. Shane doesn't look at him like he's planning something sinister.

"But the day is well started. Shall I escort you to your work?"

"Sounds great," he says. It does not sound great but much like the tea, Ryan has no idea how to get out of it. He grins and bears the escorting which involves much more touching then need be when Augustus tucks Ryan's arm in the crook of his.

When they get to the stairs, he says, "watch your steps, Mr. Smith." Which sounds...kinda like a threat. Is that a threat? Ryan doesn't know but he doesn't like it. Didn't like his tea reading, doesn't like to be told to watch his step where someone died. He grips the banister so tight his knuckles turn white.

It's a relief when they get to the lesson room; even Timmy's blank look is better than Lord Augustus' overbearing presence.

"We're here," Ryan declares tugging his arm free. Augustus takes a hand between his two before Ryan can move away.

"Indeed. Until we meet again Mr. Smith."

There is one horrified moment that Ryan thinks Augustus is going to kiss his hand but instead he just bows over it and turns away. Ryan listens to the departing footsteps fading away while Timmy blinks at him placidly. He smiles at the boy, knowing it must look strained but he's trying not to take his fear out on the creepy kid.

"Morning kiddo."

Timmy doesn't say anything. Probably because nothing fucking creepy comes to mind. That's mean. Ryan knows that's mean. It's not the kid's fault he looks like a ventriloquist dummy cursed with life, so he keeps he super fake smile plastered on his face.

"Hey Timmy, today we're gonna be doing a book report on…" he grabs a book from the shelf, "Wheat Production in East Angles. Wow, that sounds…so great. So, I'll uh…let you get started with that while I run to my room and grab my jacket. Which I forgot this morning and apparently should be wearing."

Timmy doesn't say anything, but he takes the book when Ryan hands it to him which is better then nothing and Ryan, with one slightly guilty backward glance, sneaks out of the room. He won't be gone long, and that weird placid haunted doll of a child would be fine for an hour or so.

He does go by his room and pulls on his jacket just in case he runs into Lord Unnecessary Touching then tries and fails to tie his cravat. He doesn't know how to tie a cravat and ends up with the fabric draped around his neck looking like he came straight from a video titled ‘Men Wear Ladies Scarves for a Week". Whatever, good enough. Then he grabs a candle and package of matches.

He knows he's procrastinating. Shane, for all he claimed he'd not help, had suggested two very good locations for mystery solving. The attic and the basement. Both of which are places Ryan doesn't particularly like to be in a non-haunted house and this house…well, this house certainly wasn't non-haunted.

The clock chimes 8 o'clock and he knows he must begin before he's missed.

The basement proves uneventful even though it fucking sucks. Ryan at least has experience walking in grim places he'd rather not be and it doesn't take too long to take a tour of the place. It has all the awful hallmarks of a basement (dark, dirty, full of old junk like firewood and barrels of oils) but lacks the hallmarks of the truly awful basements (pentagrams, pits to hell, demon-controlled flashlights) that he's used to.

Still working his way through the basement with only a candle has left Ryan exhausted and wrung out like he's been pushing himself while he has a fever.

The attic is somehow worse than the basement. He thinks it's because of Shane's suggestion of a woman locked up there that he can feel his neck prickling as soon as he starts up the stairs. It's a multiroomed part of the house filled with crates, and old furniture covered in dusty white cloths. He pulls up the cloths to look at the furniture until he accidentally unearths a mirror and nearly catches the house on fire when he yells and jumps away from his own reflection. The attic isn't soundless is the thing, there's wood creaking and far off taps (all the sort of sound Shane would delight in dismissing but make Ryan's heart quake).

It's still though, a whole lot of nothing but dark and dust, and until he finally finds something in the last room. In the corner it's like an explosion happened in a pile of chests there's fabric and bric-a-brac in haphazard piles. He grabs up a piece of cloth at random that unfold into a lacy pink dress. Lord Augustus and Mrs. Gibbs had mentioned the dead wife. Maybe this was hers.

He picks through the debris, books, shoes, perfume bottles, an over-turned jewelry box. Broken glass catches his eye and he picks up a large oval broach that had once displayed a pressed flower or something like that maybe but the glass is smashed and the area empty.

There's a similar silver piece with matching swirls this one with an ornate A carved on it. A. What had Augustus said his wife's name was? Amelia? No. Adelia. Yes, that was it. There's a tiny latch on the pendant and he realizes it's a locket. He pries the metal open.

Ryan's not really surprised at this point that the pictures inside are of Shane (Shane is, in a very literal sense, haunting Ryan). At first, it looks like two of the same pictures mirroring each other but when Ryan stares long enough he can see the slight change in pose and facial expression to see its two different pictures. They're not pictures of Shane though, not really, it must be Augustus wearing that serious look of old pictures.

Each oval has a caption engraved below in the frame, the left picture is captioned ‘Beloved Husband' and the right is captioned "Dear Brother' and both pictures are of Augustus. That's kinda weird, the sort of Cersei and Jaime Lannister stuff that Ryan doesn't want to think about too hard. Maybe a different person's picture is supposed to be on the right side and this one is just a filler.

He debates taking the locket with him (who wants to steal from a dead woman?) but in the end, he shamefully pockets it. He'd feel real stupid if it turns out to be a Horcrux or whatever.

"Sorry, Adelia. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I just want to go home."

Stepping out of the attic, Ryan is sweaty and miserable and no closer to figuring out a way home. A point to how Shane's dream theory is bullshit: what dream was detailed enough that dust would stick to your neck?

He just hits on the stairs heading back to the second floors when the clock starts to chime, a clock that in all his exploring Ryan has yet to find. And there's a problem with how many times the clocks chimes because that can't be the right time. He only counts 6 bongs before it stops. Last time he heard the clock it was eight in the morning. Is it six o'clock now? How did he lose so much time? That means it's been hours and hours since he'd left Timmy alone in the lesson room.

He rushes down the stairs stumbling and almost falling in his haste to return to the boy.

Timmy was not in the school room.

"Timmy?"

He works his way down the hall not seeing anyone at all. He's back at the foyer at the base of the death stairs thinking he should go up and look for the kid's room when he sees it. The front door was open a crack.

"Oh, no no no," he whispers but in his heart he knows it's yes yes yes. Of course, the kid went outside, into the dark unknown. Of fucking course! And Ryan has to go after him.

He steps outside. He's not immediately engulfed in the fog, though he can see it curling menacingly at the edge of the grounds, so he ventures further out calling Timmy's name. It feels, unnervingly, like calling for a ghost on a film shoot.

It seems so, so fitting when he comes upon a fenced yard filled with gravestones popping up like so many teeth. The gate is open.

"Timmy," he tries, hoping someone will say something back before he goes in there. No one says anything.

"Dammit," he says before opening the gate wider and going in.

The first thing he sees is a large marble angel a wreath of real flowers hanging from her neck. _Adelia Doretta Walsham_ the base reads, _a bird free of its cage_. The locket feels heavy in Ryan's pocket. That's not where he finds the kid; further in the little yard, near the back where the fog drifts through the fence gaps, Timmy is staring down at a much less elaborate gravestone.

"Hey, we need to go back inside."

"It's safer outside than in."

It's bad there, so close to the fog that had trapped him before. When he looks through the fence he can't see anything but white and the whispers, voices saying his name start to fill his ears. Ryan can't stand it. He grabs the boy's shoulder and tugs him back towards Ryan, away from the grave, away from the fog, "We shouldn't be out here."

"You'll disappear, bones and all, if you travel through the fog again," Timmy agrees. Ryan winces.

"Man, I really, really wish you'd not say the creepiest stuff. Com'on. We have to go back in."

"You need to step carefully Ryan," says too solemn for a child, too sad.

"Ok, I…what did you call me?"

Ryan drops the arm he'd been holding like it was a snake. Something evil.

"How did you know my name?" he asks voice high pitched and his brain is screaming demon, demon, demon.

Timmy screams then, like before, high pitched and terrible and Ryan decides when in Rome why not, he's terrified and because a dark figure has snuck up behind them both. At the same moment that two hands grab Ryan by the shoulders, Timmy's eyes roll up white and he topples. Ryan breaks free diving forward before the boy bashes his little head on the gravestone. The body in his arms feels so light, like a collection of sticks and shame on him for his suspicions. It was just a little boy. Ryan looks up, eyes wide.

The figure was Augustus, of course, because who else would creep up on Ryan?

"He is fine. It is just another of his fits." Lord Augustus pulls the child from Ryan but his eyes not on his sick kid, the fainting spell doesn't even seem to have registered as a concern. He stares, instead, at the gravestone before them. Confused, Ryan looks too. It reads _Eldridge Walsham, beloved brother_.

"My dear departed brother's grave. He went off to be a soldier and never returned." Augustus settles the limp body in his arms like it was nothing but a sack of potatoes and heads back to the house. Over his shoulder, he calls, "You should not stay out here Mr. Smith. It's much safer inside."

 +++

 Ryan goes to the secret room what feels like hours before midnight and waits wrapped up in the quilt from his bed.

"Rough day?" Shane asks when he appears and sees Ryan's pitiful display.

"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take," Ryan admits burrowing more into his blanket burrito. The horrific scene in the graveyard is burned into the back of his eyes.

"Mystery solving not going great?"

"No. Actually, I'm doing really shitty and it's not like you even care since I'm not real."

"What happened?"

"I fucked up is what happened. I went looking for clues like an asshole and wasn't watching the kid like I was supposed to."

Shane seems about as concerned as Lord Augustus did which is to say, not concerned, "I thought you said the kid was creepy."

"Just because a kid gives me the spooks doesn't mean child endangerment is cool!"

"Did he get hurt? Is he ok?"

"I guess? He has fits or something so it's probably not great he was wandering around out in a graveyard."

The kid had said his name. His real name. And had given him a warning. Or a threat? Ryan feels like he's missing something, some obvious fact that's taunting him, just on the tip of his tongue.

He groans and buries his face in his hands. He's exhausted.

"What would it take for you to believe me?" His voice sounds stupid and small. "That this is real."

To his credit, Shane doesn't laugh him off right away looking at him quiet and sad. But Ryan knows that Shane's not going to accept a ghost unless the ghoul came up to him, shook his hand hello and offered a certificate of authenticity. He stops Shane with a hand before he can say anything.

"Yeah ok, barring scientific rigor. I can't give you that. And if what I said before didn't work, I don't know what else to do."

"There's nothing you can do Ryan," Shane says finally, gentle like a bad diagnosis, "This is way too coo-coo bananas to not be a dream, I'm sorry. So, unless…unless I wake up and our eyes meet and you say…you know a thing, like in the movies some secret code word like ditto, something that you wouldn't say that shows this actually happened I'm never going to…"

"I'll just have to say, Shane, I think the Hot Daga is actually really good and then you'll believe me?"

"No, it needs to be something you wouldn't say."

Ryan laughs and if it's tinged a little by hysteria Shane doesn't mention it.

"I know what'll make you feel better. Tell me about your investigation today huh? You can use your serious voice."

"I don't even know if I found anything out at all. I have this, maybe it's a clue." Ryan pulls out the locket and dangles it.

"You stole that? Oh no, you've turned to a life of crime."

"I didn't steal it if it's a clue."

"Right, I forgot that law that says you can take whatever you want if it's a clue. After this, we should investigate a Best Buy for ghouls."

Shane's smile is hesitant but encouraging and Ryan can't help but smile back. The banter is good. He feels better more equalized with Shane around.

"Look," Energized now Ryan opens the locket and shows Shane the pictures.

"Two Shane's huh. The one wasn't enough for ya?"

"I think you're more than enough big guy. But this seems important, but I don't know why. Everything anyone says to me seems like a veiled threat. This morning Lord Augustus told me to watch my step and his wife died from falling down the stairs! And yes, you were right about the seduction thing."

"Oh well, that can't be too bad since you have the hots for me, right?" Shane waggles his eyebrows like an absolute tool.

"Shut up," Ryan glares and shoves the locket back in his pocket.

"So, what's your theory?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know man. I'm just a wreck."

"Well you don't look it, If I had to describe you, I'd definitely say you looked healthy and sane."

"I appreciate that."

"I mean, you certainly don't look like you've been awake for days." Shane gives him a thoughtful look, "Have you been sleeping?"

"Of course, I'm not sleeping. I never sleep in a haunted house."

"You can sleep here now can't ya? If I'm the ghost haunting this house what do you have to be afraid of? Why worry when I'm the scariest thing here?"

"I don't want to wake up with you gone." It feels dumb and vulnerable to say but whatever, as if he hasn't been dumb and vulnerable in front of Shane before. At least there aren't cameras this time. Shane still doesn't laugh, he's all soft eyes and serious lips.

"I'll wake you up before I go just like in the song. It'll be fine, I'll even set a timer." Shane pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Ryan stares. "You have your cell phone." It's not even a question.

"Yup." Shane shrugs, "Don't know what good it can really do since my ghostly form doesn't get any bars. Buuuuut, it can still keep time so...ok, you've got about forty minutes until one."

Ryan doesn't want to fight so he just gives in, flops over still wrapped in his blankets and closes his eyes. Just for a second. He won't sleep; He can never sleep in haunted houses.

"What happens in Jane Eyre?" He doesn't want to sit in silence.

"Hmm?"

"I never read it."

"What really? Well, you'll be shocked to learn it's about a lady named Jane Eyre." Ryan lets Shane's voice wash over him. The most important plot point Shane seems to remember is the wife in the attic so he keeps doubling back when he remembers another thing. It's soothing actually. With his eyes closed, Ryan can pretend that this is a safe and normal situation, not a usual time when they've slept in a haunted house but something nice, like a normal house, like one of their apartments, a thing they've never done in real life.

Ryan drifts off to Shane going over the symbolism of a red room and women's gloves.

+++

He wakes up alone.

He shouldn't be surprised or hurt but he is.

He's never felt more alone actually, and his chest aches with it.

And it's his own fault for feeling so shitty about it really, he's the one who fell asleep, he's the one who daydreamed falling asleep together and then woke up with images of waking up together on a lazy Sunday morning, having nowhere to be, warm bed, warm body-

But it's this instead, alone in a cold room in a haunted house.

Ryan rubs his face until he can work up a crumb of motivation and heads out. No plan, no idea what he's going to do but the knowledge that he can't just stop moving. The house seems immensely quiet this morning even his footsteps don't seem to make a sound.

He hurries his way to the lessons room, but Timmy isn't there yet and after waiting an unknown amount of time Ryan goes in search of the boy or Mrs. Gibbs or even Lord Augustus.

But he finds no one as if he's alone in an abandoned house which is possibly worse then the weird spooky way everyone talks to him.

"Hello?" he calls out, "is anyone here?" But no one responds.

He finds a window and looks out. The word is grey and dull. The fog seems to have crept closer to the house and it looks late in the day. Though Ryan can't remember looking out a window in the house and it ever looking like day time.

Unsure of what to do he works his way through the house checking the rooms for signs of life. That's how he finds himself on the second floor outside of Lord Augustus' room.

"Lord Walsham?" he knocks on the door then creaks it open "Augustus?"

He's been in here before so it's fine he rationalizes. He tiptoes in. The salon is empty and a glance through the other door shows the bedroom is empty too.

One of the tapestries on the wall, an ugly thing with wonky knights and twisting rose branches, is bunched weirdly and when he pulls it aside, he finds a door. He tries the handle and it's locked. It's the first locked door he's encountered in his snooping which makes it very interesting to Ryan.

Maybe there's a key. There must be a key. He searches the tea shelf and thinks he's successful for one second when he hears a rattle in a dusty teapot shoved in the back half hidden by tins of loose tea. But no, the contents are nothing nefarious just another small container of tea.

Ryan glances at the bedroom door. There are a desk and a dressing table in the bedroom which are both great places to hide a key. And there's no one around. He goes in.

He makes a wide step to avoid the bed (dark spaces under beds give him the creeps so bad) then he rolls his eyes his own childish fear and stoops down to check under the bed. See brain, nothing but dust.

Dust and a flash of red ribbon,

Huh.

Ryan pulls out a package of letters that had been concealed there. Secret letters. Interesting letters because the name on the front of the first isn't Augustus or Adelia. No, they are addressed to Eldridge, Augustus' brother, the dead soldier whose gravestone Ryan had found Timmy. This feels like something, this must be something so Ryan opens the first in the stack letter.

It's written in thin spiky handwriting that takes him a moment to decipher and read. The letters are all from Adelia, all very Jane Austin, balls and countryside visits just friendly notes to her fiancés' brother. To her friend; he can tell from the one-sided conversation as she answers questions and tells funny anecdotes. Ryan feels like a real creep reading them like he'd hacked into someone's email.

The last one though, it's the only one signed Adelia Walsham the full name with a weirdly large flourish. Ryan doesn't just skim.

_My Dearest Eldridge,_

_I shall miss you now that you have gone. I know Augustus would never say but he will miss you as well._

_The house is not the same without you; who shall read my future now that you have gone? Without you, the future is unknowable and so dark._

_I found myself concerned by our last, shall I say, confrontations before you left. I worry terribly that I have done injury to you and caused you to leave home. I am sorry if my words were harsh. Of course, you understand that it is Augustus I have wed. I fear that my letters and friendship have confused or upset you. Know that you will always be my dear friend and now, forever and always, my dear brother. I will wear your portrait with Augustus' but it is a brotherly love that I have for you._

_Your loving sister,_

_Adelia Walsham_

"Ooh, brother zoned," he whispers. That explains the captions on the locket. Weird that she hadn't put Eldridge's picture like she said buuut he can read between the lines enough to tell that the guy probably was a huge creep so...

That's the end of the letters but there's one last page, a ripped half a page without an envelope the handwriting the same but scrawled with big smears and spots of ink like it was written in a rush.

_Eldridge,_

_I dreamt I saw you out in the moor. At first, I thought it must be Augustus but then I looked to the bed and he was still there sleeping. That's when I knew it must be you standing there under the willow tree even though you were killed half a world away. Oh, my brother, my dearest friend my heart shattered in a thousand pieces when we received the news you died. I know I must have have been my words that made your spirit haunt the world instead of moving on. You stay for I did not treat your heart with tender hands. I'm so sorry._

_Augustus does not believe in the spirits that haunt our world and tomorrow he plans to go off into the fen to prove nothing is haunting me out there in the dark._

_I am afraid what he will find._

That's it. Ryan turns the page over but there's nothing more. This feels like something, like a clue but he's not sure what. There's something weird there though, about Augustus. Where did he get these letters?

There's a creak from the doorway behind him and Ryan stiffens. This entire time Ryan's had his back to the door. He whirls, holding the letters behind his back, just as Augustus appears in the doorway.

They stare at each other for a moment before Augustus breaks the silence "So, the man I have welcomed into my house has decided to break my trust and paw through my room."

"I didn't know anyone was here," Ryan says which is not, you know, the best defense when caught snooping.

"Evidently, hence your pilferage."

"I wasn't stealing I was looking for…" his brain supplies the word options of key or fucking portent neither of which he wants to say.

"And, what is that you have found bunny? Behind your back?"

"Um, nothing just…" Ryan reluctantly pulls the letters from behind his back. He's not expecting the response, how Augustus' face twists into a snarl, all angry teeth with a promise of violence

"You dare. You thief, creeping in, touching my letters from my dearest Adelia."

"Your letters? But…" All at once everything just clicks in place all the weird inconsistencies, the two pictures in the locket and it makes Ryan rear back in surprise. "Oh. Oh! Oh, I get it now. That's why you fired all the old staff, and why Adelia said you didn't believe in ghosts when you clearly do and why she thought that he was standing under the tree not…brother and husband! The pictures look the same because you're twins! And you're not Augustus, you're Eldridge!"

Ryan stops. Stops talking and breathing because he's not watching a movie with friends trying to prove how smart he is by guessing the twist ending he's in a room with a…oh shit. Is Eldridge a murderer?

 Augustus, or rather Eldridge distracts him by saying, "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," and Ryan doesn't see the walking stick swinging towards his head before it's too late.

\--

He comes to when Eldridge unlocks the secret door in the salon and tosses Ryan in. It is not much of a victory, getting in that is, because even though the impact of his body to floor brings him back to his senses, he's tied up. He can feel when he winces, that his forehead is tacky with dried blood.

This secret room it's pretty much the scary room Ryan had been expecting that first night. It's not a torture chamber but it feels a lot like one of those boards with red strings come to life in a splatter of paranoia, crystals, and chalk symbols scrawled on the walls. He can recognize many of the bits from his studies, rose quartz, white sage countless things that drive away spirits hanging from the ceiling, piled in the room's corners, filling its shelves.

It's a struggle to sit up because his hands are tied behind his back and he doesn't manage it without hissing from pain alerting the other man.

"He lives," Eldridge intones, his back to Ryan fussing with something at a workbench.

"Let me go."

"You can scream all you like, unfortunately for you, the Gibbs have taken my nephew to the doctor in the village. We two are very much alone."

Pure terror pumps through his veins. "Augustus…Eldridge? You don't want to do this." Ryan doesn't know what ‘this' is, but he doubts he'll like it.

"Ah, it is refreshing to hear my name again. It's been a while. Since we are being introduced once again would you mind if I call you Ruben?"

"You can call me whatever you want if you untie me."

Eldridge doesn't seem to be listening he's fiddling with a jar pouring what smells like cloves in to fill the bottom. There's another jar like it on a small round table surrounded by four mirrors facing it and on the floor some kind of pentagram shape drawn around the table legs interspersed with candles and crystals. It looks like something Ryan's seen before during his research but he can't quite remember what it does.

That's not important right now. Now he needs to stop Eldridge from doing whatever he's planning to do to Ryan.

"Eldridge? Look, I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt anybody."

"Hurt!" Eldridge looks back with wild eyes, "It is the world which hurt me! Pity me man, I have been heart broken, exiled from my home, captured in battle, and left for dead. But I survived and when I return, hoping only to gaze at my love, my own brother sets upon me like a fiend."

"Augustus went out that night when Adelia told him she saw you."

"But I found him first."

"And you…you killed him. And took his place."

"There was no other option."

"And then you killed Adelia." Ryan guesses. Eldridge pulls away from his work eyes wide.

"Never! I would never harm Adelia. I loved her and she loved me. We had so much in common you see. What did Augustus know about anything? He never cared for her as I did. " Eldridge paces, hands in his hair. "And I tried to keep her calm afterward. There's a tea I made her, but she became hysterical thinking she'd lost her husband."

"She did lose her husband."

"She had me!"

"You killed her husband."

"You don't understand!" Eldridge drops down in front of Ryan's eyes pleading, "you must understand Ruben. You know what a burden the unbelievers can be on our hearts. You must know how they weigh us down in this world."

His hand reaches out like he wants to caress Ryan's face and Ryan jerks back in disgust. "You don't even know me. You just met me."

"Other people are unknowable are they not?" Eldridge sighs, sadly, "still, I liked what I saw of you. I'm sorry to do this rabbit."

"Do what?" Ryan asks but then Eldridge pulls out a knife and he has a pretty good idea. "Don't!"

The man grabs him by the hair and pulls his head back exposing Ryan's neck. Ryan trashes but can't slip free and the knife comes closer.

"I imagine your spirit will be angry with me and I must take precautions ahead of time. Hold still please, so much of your hair is cropped very short."

"Get away from me!" Ryan gasps.

There's a pain but its only from a sharp tug on his hair and Eldridge lets him go. He didn't cut anything but Ryan's hair. Back at the workbench, Eldridge drops the hair into the jar. Ryan looks across the room to the other jar, the one surrounded with the mirrors. Inside he imagines he can see a coil of brown hair.

"You're making…you're making a spirit jar. Because you're afraid of ghosts. You're afraid I'm going to haunt you after you kill me." His eyes widen, "That's what on the table there. You're afraid of your brother's ghost."

"There was…there was an incident after I…Adelia saw him and that's why. Lucky for me Adelia kept a braid of Augustus's hair but I banished him too late. I won't let you do the same."

Eldridge is afraid. Ryan saw it in his eyes, can see it in the set of his back. Afraid of a ghost. Afraid of the supernatural. Ryan can tell easily because he spends a lot of time feeling that way himself.

Ryan also has, let's say, experience with that fear getting taunted. Getting riled up.

"Eldridge. Elderidge! I've seen a ghost. In this house."

The man freezes, "Liar."

"I never lie about ghosts. Ever. I'm a ghost hunter with integrity. And I've seen a ghost. He appears in my room every night at midnight."

"He does not!" He yells. Eldridge is rattled so rattled the jar he wants to trap Ryan's soul with is shaking in his hands as he hurriedly builds his ward.

Is this what being the person not afraid of ghost feels like? It feels pretty powerful.

Takes a breath. Channels Shane's gleeful disregard for the supernatural, and calls out to the ceiling, "Augustus! Augustuuus! Are you here? Show yourself!"

"Shut up!"

"Are you there Augustus or are you some kind of wimp? I bet you're too much of a coward to appear right now!"

"Enough! Silence or I will silence you!" Eldridge reaches for his knife, knocks over his work and then shrieks into his hands.

He's very rattled.

Ryan considers for a second, Eldridge with his face in his hands moaning, then he caterpillar crawls over towards the little table, bunches his legs, and kicks. The table and its contents shake.

"Stop that!" Eldridge leaps at him but Ryan has enough time to ram his legs again before the weight of the other man came down on him. He gasps, the air knocked out of him but hears that beautiful sound as the air is filled with the crystal sound of smashing glass.

"What have you done!?" The knife is back and this time it looks ready to cut something that's not hair.

And then it happens. The clock chimes. Ryan's never been so happy to hear that stupid clock. It sounds defending from this room, reverberating, hellish.

Eldridge drops the knife to cover his ears and knife's clatters is drowned out by the clock that Ryan finally wants to hear so he can count the rings. Twelve.

"It's midnight Eldridge." Ryan's voice is mean. It's one of his bit voices, his Ricky voice, and it's clearly scaring the other man who backs away in horror, "It's the witching hour."

"No!"

"You know he's coming for you."

Eldridge flees and Ryan watches him go with a smile.

"Now who's a scared rabbit, jerk."

His triumph hardly lasts any time. Eldridge steps back into the room moments later tall and horrifying while Ryan's still struggling with his bound.

"Get away from me!" he yells and the man steps closer.

"Ryan! Jesus. You're bleeding!"

"Shane!" Ryan sobs in relief, "Shane it's you!"

"Who else would it be?" Shane hurriedly crosses the room and kneels by Ryan.

"How'd you know where I was?" Ryan asks as Shane helps pull him to a sitting position, "Oh! Were you drawn here with your ghost powers?"

"Shut up. No! I heard shouting. Ghost powers aren't real you idiot. Why are you tied up?"

Shane's hand is cool to the touch and Ryan gasps, "You're touching me! You can touch me! You're corporeal!"

"Please don't use words like corporeal," Shane pleads as he tugs on the knots at Ryan's wrists. "I don't know what happened. One minute I was trying to wake you up in that room the next I was in the entrance of this house."

"Yeah! I did that! That was me. I was right! That jar was some kind of talisman to keep Eldridge's brother's ghost away! And I broke it!"

"Who? And may I add, what?" Shane grabs the knife from the floor and saws away at the rope.

"Turns out Augustus, the guy I've been telling you about was actually his twin brother Eldridge. And I think you're playing the part of the ghost of his brother who he murdered."

Shane pauses, "That's a convoluted tale."

"That's gothic horror. Like you said."

Shane frees Ryan's arms finally and they work together to pull the rope off Ryan's legs. Once freed, Shane puts his hand on Ryan's chin and turns his head toward the light, "This looks pretty bad."

Ryan smacks the hand away, "What do you care? I'm a figment of your imagination remember?"

"That doesn't mean I want to see you hurt."

Almost being murdered must bring out the grumpiness in him since the sincerity in Shane's voice does little to mollify Ryan, "But I still got hurt because that's what happens when you have to solve a mystery in a haunted house by yourself."

"In my defense, I was stuck in a room. And fine, I was a dick but I'm here ready to see how this crazy dream goes. You solved the mystery; What's next?"

"I don't know. I hoped that would be enough but I'm still here. This house seems like the focal point of everything. I can't leave it. Literally, I can't, it's surrounded by evil fog. I need to…" Ryan stops wide-eyed. "I think I know what I need to do."

"Get rid of the fog?" Shane guesses.

"Get rid of the house."

"Ryan. Is your solution arson? I mean, I don't hate it but I'm a bit surprised."

"There's a bunch of oil in the basement. Ok, I know it sounds super crazy, but this is my new theory. The house is bad. Everyone else is gone. Eldridge must have run off since he's scared of you. We go, get the oil, burn this mother to the ground."

Ryan wobbles to his feet. Shane frowns and pushes him back down.

"A minor adjustment to your plan. A murderer just cracked you on the noggin and you can hardly stand. Tell me where the basement is, I'll get the oil and then together we torch the house." He grins, "If I'm a ghost the crazy murder man can't hurt me, can he?"

"But…what if I'm supposed to do this alone? You don't even think this is real."

"This can't be real. It's not. But we're…we're partners. Ghoul Boys for life. I should have had your dumb ghost loving back. Let me do this for you."

The corners of Ryan's eyes itch, he's going to cry, and his face hurts, not just from his injury, but because of the big stupid grin he's giving Shane.

There's a moment then, they look at each other and if it were a movie the music would swell, and they would…well they would do what people do in movies when the music swells. Instead, Shane gives him an awkward head bob and says "Ok, don't die. I'll be right back."

Ryan waits but as the minutes pass he realizes he doesn't want to stay in Eldridge's creepy talisman room or the salon where a murderer tried to put the moves on him. He'll wait for Shane in the hallway.

That's when he sees it. How he'd missed it before he doesn't know, maybe the house morphed and moved when he wasn't looking adding and removing things just to torment him. But he sees it now at the end of the hall.

The clock.

He approaches it slowly ears filling with the heartbeat sound of it ticking, a dangerous sound like a hornet's nest. It's a grandfather clock, taller than him, wood so brown it's nearly black, scrollwork of thorny roses winding up its side a gleaming gold pendulum swinging behind a pane of dusty glass.

He hates it as soon as he looks at it. It's monstrous. It's been tormenting him constantly since he arrived. It's awful.

And in the next second, it also saves his life.

As Ryan's glaring at it, watching the pendulum tick swing he sees reflective movement in the glass and dodges to the side just as Eldridge tries to slam his walking stick down on Ryan's skull. The glass doors shatter raining shards of glass onto the floor and Eldridge twists back around jumping at Ryan hands going for his throat.

Ryan punches him in the nose. Eldridge falls backward, the clock clanking against his back.

"Craven!" the man howls pushing off the clock and rushing at him.

Ryan hasn't been in a physical fight since middle school, but maybe he's just a natural, maybe it's because Eldridge has Shane's noodle arms, either way, Ryan is succeeding at hitting back the arms reaching out to harm him.

Unfortunately, he'd forgotten the walking stick and when Eldridge stoops to pull it out of the clock he hits Ryan with a with a sharp jab to the abdomen knocking his breath away. Coughing, Ryan retreats backward down the hall, Eldridge right behind him. The cut on his forehead has reopened and he can feel the blood trickling down his face.

He stumbles into the second-floor landing but Eldridge hits him again, catching him low on his knees and Ryan trips sprawling on his back on the landing at the head of the stairs. Eldridge rears back stick high.

"HEY!" they both turn to see Shane taking the stairs two at a time skidding to a stop between Ryan and his attacker. "Step off pal," he snaps in a bizarre tough guy approximation but despite his tone, his eyes are wide, scared even, at the shock by coming face to face with his own face.

Eldridge has frozen at the sight of Shane, eyes bulging in horror, face blanching white under the red smears of blood. His weapon falls from his hands.

"NO!"

It happens so fast, Eldridge sways forward more a swoon then an attack and Shane puts his arms out like he wants to push Eldridge away from Ryan. As Eldridge shrinks back from Shane's hands in fear, his foot comes down on his walking stick and he slips backward arms pinwheeling and he tumbles hard echoing thuds down the staircase. The last sound is a sickening crack and Ryan and Shane both stare at the body motionless on the floor.

"Oh jeez," Shane's voice is alarmed and high, "Looks like I've kinda done a murder here."

Ryan laughs. A big unrestricted laugh. There's a body at the bottom of the stairs and he's wheezing. It must be shock. "What kind of a Midwesterner statement was that? Oh, cheese and crackers I've killed a man."

Shane laughs with him equally hysterical. "Gosh darn it, Helen, I've done gone and slayed again."

They're holding each other up now, shaking with laughter.

"I mean, it was probably manslaughter, right?" Ryan gasps when he can talk again, "If you could get charged."

"Right, dream murder doesn't count."

Ryan pulls his face from where he'd hid it in Shane's shoulder, looks down the stairs and says, "Oh. Fuck."

"What?"

Ryan points, "While we were bantering, he got up."

"Hopefully our last words were funny at least," Shane says weakly. They both stare at the empty floor and the shadowy doorways leading away into the house.

Ryan grimaces, "Forget the plan, I just want out of this house where the murderer is hiding."

"One hundred percent agreed. Let's do what you do best and remove ourselves out of this demon house."

They take the stairs gingerly looking each way as if expecting Eldridge to jump them any moment. As soon as they hit the entranceway, they power walk out the front door. Outside, the fog is thick and so close to the house they can only get about half a yard from the house before the air is as dense as cream soup.

"Oh no no no!" Ryan moans, "What the fuck are we supposed to do? I can't…we can't kill that guy. How do we destroy the house with him in it? What do we do? What can we do?"

Shane's got a look of sick horror plastered to his face but he's staring at his phone not even paying attention to Ryan.

"Shane! What, are you on Instagram right now? What the hell?"

Shane doesn't answer just tucks his phone away and grabs Ryan by the shoulders, "Ryan. You're doing great you know?" His voice reckless, a last words desperation that fills Ryan with dread.

"Why are you talking like that?"

"And you were right about the denial thing. I was thinking about it," Shane kisses him. It's a kiss but it's like kissing a cloud of mist that halfway through realizes it was vapor. Ryan pulls away as Shane blurs before him.

"No! Nonononoo. It can't have been an hour already."

"Sorry Ry, I've only got about 20 seconds left."

"Don't!"

"You've got this. Kick this spooky stuff's ass."

The clock gives one sad horrific bleat that Ryan can hear all the way from where he stands. It sounds like Eldridge had hurt it, sounds like what a Salvador Dalí clocks would sound like. Melted. Broken. Just the one sound and Ryan's alone.

Alone outside, house with a killer in front of him. He thinks he sees movement in a window but when he looks he can't see anything. Can't see anything but the fog curling around him and the house looming before him.

Killer fog behind him, a killer man in front. Very catch twenty-two. Very should I stay, or should I go.

"If I stay there will be double," he mutters then looks away from the house at the fog. The killer fog. The fog that everyone warned him about.

Unless.

The thing he'd been missing the question on the tip of his tongue. He thinks it now.

Where was the portal on this side?

Doorways have two sides to them. That's how doors work.

Where was the doorway?

And like that Ryan knows where it is. Everything next happens in slow motion: there's a scream, horrible and feral from the house and Eldridge bursts out of the front door running at Ryan, knife in hand, unnaturally fast, face a twisted horror, the final monster attack of the film but Ryan's already moving not turning to run, not turning at all. He just…steps backward. Steps backward into the fog.

Stepping backward. They'd learnt about that in New Orleans from Bloody Mary and even though Shane had done a goofy dance and Ryan had followed along at the time it had felt so powerful, magical, stepping through the doorway backward.

That's is after all the last thing he remembers before now. A barn in Tennessee, a doorway, Shane makes a crack about Narnia and Ryan turns to look at him, to smile at him, and he steps through the doorway backward.

The doorway; The portal.

"Be not afraid, be not afraid, be not afraid," he orders himself chanting. He hears the voices, sees the shapes in the mist and keeps going. The fog doesn't seem as ephemeral, his clothes catch on tree branches, on hands grabbing for him. "Be not afraid," he pleads light headed from his frantic heartbeat freezing from the fog.

Step, step splash. He hits the water, sinks in a panic then (be not afraid) he lets himself sink.

"Be not afraid, be not afraid."

Then his head's underwater and he can't help but be afraid.

The water is as terrible as it had looked, because it's not water, it's something awful and unknowable and he screams until his lungs fill. His bones fill. His very atoms fill with it.

And he…

His back hits a wall in the nothingness and he's standing in the void, back against the wall and everything is just the absence of anything. It's the roar of absolute silence, the painful numb of empty space, the draining black of pure darkness.

Then the world tilts, the wall is the floor and he's lying on it bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He's woozy from the time vertigo returned again but backward this time; a second ago he stepped through a door, spent three days elsewhere, and returned less than a second later. It makes his brain ache.

"Wh-"

"It's ok. You fell. You're ok," Shane's kneeling beside him looking pale and shocked.

Ryan blinks up at him resisting the urge to go all Dorothy on his ass. I had the strangest dream and you were there.

Shane was there.

It wasn't a dream.

Ryan's brain throbs.

There's a flurry of panicked activity in the room around them, Mark's jerking open a First Aid kit and Devon's already calling an ambulance.

"What happened?" someone calls out of Ryan's eye line.

"Ryan tripped and fell down the stairs," Shane answers but it's not a matter of fact voice. He's lying, but no he's not lying. Shane's convincing himself that that's what happened.

Oh no. Ryan's had enough of that shit. He squeezes Shane's hand until he looks down, so Ryan can look him right in the eye and says, "Shane, ghost are bullshit and the Hot Daga is the literary masterpiece of our time."

The rest of the crew hears it and Mark blurts, "Oh shit, Ryan's got brain damage." But it's a tension breaker, there's laughter and Devon seems to deflate in relief.

But it wasn't a joke. It was for Shane and Ryan was staring into his eyes as he said it. Sees the confusion and fear. Shane's mouth works soundlessly for a moment and Ryan braces for the denial, the heartbreak.

"Ditto," Shane says instead.


End file.
